That’s the Word for It: Adjudicate

The word adjudicate comes from the Latin root ‘judex’, the word for law. This word is part of legalese and is also used in terminology associated with construction, background investigations and emergency response.

Here are some instances in literature where this verb has been used.

“To me, the thing about friendship that makes it so singular is that it’s a relationship that’s central to our identity in that it doesn’t necessarily benefit us in any tangible way. It’s a relationship we don’t have to pursue – if we decide to stop being friends one day, nothing will happen, no one’s there to legislate or adjudicate it. It’s two people who every day choose to keep it going, and in that way it’s very powerful because it’s one you choose to work on, and you choose to without any agreement; it’s an unspoken bond.”
― Hanya Yanagihara

“Men have been adjudicating on what women are, and how they should behave, for millennia through the institutions of social control such as religion, the medical profession, psychoanalysis, the sex industry. Feminists have fought to remove the definition of what a woman is from these masculine institutions and develop their own understandings.”
― Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism